The Clockwork strikes 12
by Mazula
Summary: Bored, I decided to write my personal outlook on Clockwork and how he came into being and such. Inspired by the many other authors who have done the same, enjoy. Rated K for very mild swearing from the Observants and a tiny dash of humor.


The Clockwork strikes 12.

_A/N – Yeah, decided to do an outlook on Clockwork and my theory of how he came into existence and such. Though instead of my usually craziness and such, this fic is actually kind of philosophical. But there's still plenty of Clockwork's well timed smarminess and sarcasm, and lots of Observer abuse XD_

_(And yes, I do know they're called 'Observants' but I'm kind of stuck of 'Observers' since I didn't realized they were called Observants until about a week ago. I'm now too used to Observers, so go with it people)_

_So enjoy,_

_PLEASE review and give me some feedback. My last DP fic didn't go so great T-T_

**Disclaimer: I do not own Danny Phantom or any of the mentioned characters. If I did, I'd be a very happy fangirl.**

This is from Clockwork's POV!!!

They say that in the beginning, there was nothing. And yet, from nothing, came something; existence. From existence came beginning, and from the beginning came the start of life, as well as awareness. But of course, if there is life, something has to keep it moving, and it eventually has to end at some point.

Me; I am Clockwork, Master of Time and Space.

And as you probably know, I am not a normal person. I am a ghost, yet I'm not necessarily dead, nor am I alive. I just am. I exist as much as time itself. I'm endless, beginning-less…and am just as controllable as time itself.

Now I know what you're thinking now; you think I'm going to go through one of those philosophical lectures and ramble on and on about the way the world works. Well I'm not. But if you don't wish to listen, there's the door.

…so you're staying? Heh, didn't see _that_ coming…I know, bad joke. Ahem, so I'll cut to the chase and continue.

Now, as I said, with existence and life came awareness. And with awareness came fear. Fear of losing control, being vulnerable, and fear of being on the receiving end of dominance. So what do the ones aware of these issues do? Easy…they assume dominance before it can be taken. Who are they? Again, easy question. The Observers.

The first beings of awareness and high intelligence. Heh, and I say 'high intelligence' because even I can believe they're smarter than the first living things to come into being; the first living things being boneless arthropods.

Anyways, they assumed the role of holding order in the living world. They formed a High Council, and using their own power, assumed all future knowledge to gain the upper hand. They kept things in order in the universe, made sure peace was ensured and destruction to be passed if needed.

But, before all this, something else was made along with existence; time.

Time, the key essential to moving life forward and existence along. The lead marching commander of the parade.

Yet time seems inevitable. It never had a beginning or an end, it just existed. It cannot simply be made like living things or items. You yourself as a human are made up of basic chemical compounds that could easily be found in a High School science lab. But the spark of life is not an easy find, but nor is it like time. Because life has a beginning and an end.

I have no actually life within my being. I am just as you see; I'm simply here, existing.

How was I exactly made? Easy; I never was. I simply came into being by sheer will. And sheer luck.

Time used to be an independent occurrence. No master, no leash, nothing. It was simply a free and uncontrolled thing that started existence. It simply existed, than the Observers came into being. And with their hypocritical need for control, they came to fear time. They came to fear the untouchable, one of the few things they couldn't control. So they made something that could take time by the leash and control it; me.

But there was a price. By creating me, they destroyed time's independence and natural flow. I _am _time, yes I can never _be _time. It's a part of me yet as close to me as the moon is to you. Confused yet? Don't be; it only gets more complicated yet simple later.

They made me; or in other words, they made a huge mistake. Though they refuse to admit it. I can control, manipulate, twist, and bend time like a hot piece of metal. Which meant I could be manipulated and bent. But metal always cools and hardens into a shape eventually…and that's exactly what happened to me. I could no longer be bent. But I could be broken.

The mind is a complicated thing, yet it can be broken and shattered when overwhelmed. If you were given the endless knowledge of everything the universe had to offer, would your sanity stand firm? The answer is no; if anything, I'd probably drive one to suicide and insanity. It can even happen to me. Or at least, it _happened _to me. I emphasize 'happened' because it already occurred. My mind is broken. It's been broken _numerous _times.

Do I seem insane to you? No, of course not. But let me explain how it happened yet looks as though I have more sanity than a psychiatrist.

If you break something, say a toy, a vase, or anything like that, you throw the broken one away, and get a new one right? Right. Well guess what? That's how I am used.

Like an old clock, I need to be wound every now and again. My sanity is my wind-up limit. But what is the key?

A new body; a whole new mind, persona, and sense of loyalty.

I, or rather, my past selves, are all reincarnations. We share the same mind, same memories, powers, and sense of loyalty. But like my existence, there came a price.

What happens when you hit a dog when it does something bad? After a while, it'll learn not to do it, but it also learns something else; to fight back. Give him a treat, and he just might bite.

So what happens when you reincarnate a being who first starts out as a mindless drone following the Observer's orders, and after so many reincarnations, starts to think; he gains a conscious.

My last carnations started to ask themselves; why do we have to listen to anyone?

And the more I was reincarnated, the more I became aware of my own freewill. Whenever my past carnations start to wind down, or begin to lose their sanity and give up on 'living', they go to the Observers. Time cannot simply die, it can simply be rewound like a clock. So when my past carnations go to the Observers looking for his time to 'die', a new Time Master is than created.

If you've noticed, I contain within my body, more so my chest, a clock and pendulum. The clock is in a sense, my heart, my life force. Like any other heart, it starts to weaken. It is weakened when my mind begins to lose its hold on sanity, and needs to be rewound and placed in a new body.

Now how am I simply refreshed? Well, that's not as complicated as it sounds; you probably won't even need a manual to remember how to rewind me. I know, sad right?

I'm made as such.

When my last carnation was through with 'living' and came to the Observers, he is taken inside the High Council and to the Time Chamber.

There, he is 'killed' painlessly by removing the clock within his chest and the body disappearing into nothingness. And the new body?

Now, imagine this; an adult sized manikin doll with no face, no mind, no life. Just a simple, empty shell with a hole in its chest. Again, it's so simple it's sad. But it's the truth I suppose.

Place the clock in its new body, and wind it back up again. The life force from my clock gives the body life, a mind, persona, and a new appearance.

Like any other newborn, the very first thing I hear when I came into being was my own screams. Even I can feel pain; more specifically, the weight and harsh reality of time itself flooding through my body like the blood you bleed.

But when I was made, I was not like my past carnations. Not in the slightest.

In fact, my afterlife was a lot more interesting. I still get a laugh remembering the first time I told an Observer off…

"Clockwork…" he started, his one eye twitching in agitation. Yes, he and his companion have come here to scold me. Yes again, they're mad because I did something they told me to do in my own way. And give yourself a prize, yes, I got my result, and left their outcome in the dust. And right again, I am standing there, smirking innocently to my heart's content, watching my time screen as if we were having a nonchalant conversation of no real importance. Being omnipotent, or all-knowing, you don't get surprised. And it is so boring just being able to predict what will happen and to whom.

"Yes?" I asked. Though I already knew where this was going.

"Do you know why we're here…again?"

"Why no. I do not. Care to elaborate?"

"You know damn well why we're here Clockwork!" that was the first time one of them cursed at me, and it only made me more giddy inside.

"Humor me." I said.

"We're here because not only did you disobey our orders, you mucked up the whole situation _not _killing that solider!" The other yelled. Again, another first time for them is yelling at me. I sigh and turn to them, my small arms crossed over my chest and my childish face contorted into a smart-aleck smirk.

"Yes, and the problem?" I asked.

"The problem is that you disobeyed us!"

"And acted completely recklessly against our commands!"

I sometimes find it amusing how those two will finish a sentence or continue for the other when talking. In fact, it's pretty much the only thing I'm paying attention to when they scold me.

"Did I now? If I saw it correctly, it worked out better than your idea of killing him. Now in this timeline, he survives and eventually assists in the soon to be signing of the Declaration of Independence." I said with a shrug. Both Observers growl and clench and unclench their fists in pure anger and agitation. I mentally laugh at them with a smirk on my face.

Like I said, call me a sadist, I really don't get to enjoy any real entertainment when I'm constantly working in a clock tower miles away from any kind of ghost civilization.

And what do I do when they're scolding me and ranting me out? I simply stand there and stare at them as if I'm listening when I'm actually wondering if they have depth perception with only one eye. I sometimes even wonder if they make giant contact lenses for themselves. With eyes those huge, you'd think something would get stuck in them.

"And further more! Does it really seem so likely that you can get away with this a second time!?" One of them yells. I can never tell who's who. They all look the same to me and don't have names as far as I know.

"Does it seem likely you'll become less annoying and ugly to look at?" I asked in a bored manner, seemingly more interested in the giant swinging pendulum in one of my many clocks.

I swear he did a three-sixty axel hearing that from me; one of their most loyal employees that used to clean up their messes without a fuss.

Too bad I was having too much fun sucking what little pride they had left out of their hypocritical selves.

"What is wrong with you!?" his companion blurts.

"What's wrong with your face, or more lack of one?"

If it weren't for common sense, his eye would have popped out of his head it was so wide. Because this was seriously the very first time they're hearing this coming from their so called loyal servant.

And so began our feud.

And it gets funnier as time went on…yes, I know, another bad joke. Lay off, I don't exactly have a social life.

You can imagine I get bored sitting up all the time in my clock tower, doing nothing but staring at a time screen. So when Halloween hits, I get a kick out of things.

You know those gummy eyeballs that spurt green goo when you squeeze them? Yes, I went there just for a laugh.

The two come for another round of scolding after I 'accidently' tipped an officer off of a few boys egging a house. And now the fun began.

"I swear Clockwork, you're doing this on purpose!" one blurted. And he couldn't be any more right.

"Me? Now why would I do such a thing?" I asked innocently, digging into the small bag of eyeballs I got.

"I swear Clockwork, you can be such a child sometimes! You had no right to-" a pause as they both watch as I flip the eyeball like a coin between my thumb and forefinger.

"What…is that?" one asks.

"Oh nothing. Just a little something to get me in the Halloween spirits I suppose." I said. Their eyes widened when I placed the candy between my teeth, my one buck-tooth looking about ready to pierce it like a knife. Looking about ready to hurl, I smirked when I heard a satisfying 'pop' when I bit down on the candy, green goo oozing and dripping down my lower lip. I sucked it in and swallowed it before licking away the sour juice.

"Yum…" I said. I nearly lost all sense f my self control when they screamed like a bunch of school girls, one fainting dead on the spot while the other ran off to supposedly vomit. Though I don't know how they're purge themselves without a mouth or a stomach for that matter.

Heh, happy Halloween.

Ah, just looking back on it makes my pride swell and lighten my mood. Now they never come anywhere near me on Halloween, much to my relief. There's a fine line between when their scolding is amusing and becomes annoying.

But back to all seriousness, it was all the proof the High Council needed to finally accept that I was not going to be a good little servant any longer. I was an independent soul now, and they could not change that.

Call me a sadist, I won't deny I love seeing them squirm and fume under the influence of my ah…'charming personality'. Or as they call it, my 'smarmy, sarcastic, disrespectful, and most unwanted or needed' ways. Hey, it doesn't end there, their list of things to call me or refer to me as goes on. I'd go on, but their words are not only too long to understand, they get quite…colorful. Seriously, I'm not kidding, they know enough foul words to fill a library and make a dictator cry.

They say when the clock strikes twelve, it signals the day is half over. But when I, the twelfth carnation, came into being, their time as being dominant of me ended.

Twelve past selves, each one slowly yet surely picking up on the 'why's' and 'if's'. But each time a new me was made, the longer it took for their sanity to break. I can't even begin to say how long it took my last self to break down, I'd be using quite an inappropriate amount of zeros.

They assumed that I'd break soon and they'd get a new, more obedient Time Master. Well, as I love to say, they were _wrong_.

Twelve numbers on the clock, and it never naturally runs in reverse. It keeps moving forward, but the numbers ahead of it are always below it. I am the last and final carnation. My sanity can _never _break.

Like I learned to think and do as I saw fit, my mind and clock adapted to time's limitless knowledge and tragedies. In other words, I am just as independent and controllable as time itself. I am may have been made from a large doll, but I am no toy.

I can be harsh, cruel, cold, and practically unforgiving to the point of seeming like a heartless monster. I am basically heartless, but I am not devoid of compassion, as you may have noticed when I helped Danny Phantom from becoming the evil ghost he would be and sparing his life when ordered to terminate him.

Whether it been motivated by my love to prove the Observers wrong, or some shred of care and human based emotion, even I'll never know. But it happened, and to this day, I don't regret it. But even with that one, or rather, _two _disruptions in the timeline, I do not simply go around helping people to prevent something they won't like. If anything, I often cause those hardships. The Black Plague for instance, I could have stopped it as easily as I can cause it. But I didn't. Why? Because it's how things are. I may control time, but that gives me no reason or right to disrupt it from moving things in their natural way.

World War one. Quite a blood bath that was. I didn't stop it. If I did stop it, many of the much needed historical moments never would have happened.

I watch all off it happen, and not so much as a sigh or regret passes my lips. I'm probably as cold as the Ice Age at heart, but like I said, I am not emotionless.

But I'm also not above destroying lives, innocent or not. It's in my nature, and it cannot be changed, even if I wanted it to.

So this is who I am, inside and out. I am something that came into being, yet never had a beginning, nor can I have an end. I exist, yet I am not here; I simply _am_.

I am as touchable as the force of life itself, and as controllable as a monstrous storm, and I can be just as cruel.

When the clock strikes twelve, it means the day is half over. When my time struck twelve, it was the end of my past beginning…

I am Clockwork, Master of Time and Space, and _I am time_.

_A/N_

_And there you have it, my outlook on Clockwork. Only problem is its WAY too long! 7 whole pages man! And that last story of his kinda killed the drama and intense atmosphere. But hey, this is kinda my outlook on how he came into being and so forth._

_Everyone has their limits, and I'll bet Clockwork's no exception. His limit is probably his sanity, so I began thinking on it and came up with this. Enjoy._

_REVIEW PLZ!!!_


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